My distance record

zerink · Sep 2, 2018

I recently broke my distance record. I never had the guts to try it before.
I climbed a small Hill near my home place in order to have a radio line of sight. No wind.
Then sent the uav away until I reached 1.8km at 100m high.
When signal quality was iffy, I turned around and barely made it back before critical battery level. The rth bubble was almost touching the 5 minutes marker when I turned around.
I am rather concerned that if I did not come back in sport mode, maybe the battery would not have had enough pwr to make the trip.

This was a curiosity experiment. Not something I will try again.
Anyway, it is against the law to lose sight of the thing.

mano · Sep 2, 2018

just out of curiosity, could you see it at 1.8 km away with the naked eye, or did you have a spotter with binoculars?

notime4fun · Sep 2, 2018

Isnt sport mode for making it back on low battery kinda like going faster in your car to the gas station when on a low tank?

zerink · Sep 2, 2018

mano said:
just out of curiosity, could you see it at 1.8 km away with the naked eye, or did you have a spotter with binoculars?

Only relying on the remote camera

zerink · Sep 2, 2018

notime4fun said:
Isnt sport mode for making it back on low battery kinda like going faster in your car to the gas station when on a low tank?

Good point. Did not try myself, but a YouTuber proved that sport mode is more economical on the battery.

desert spark · Sep 2, 2018

Interesting video!
Looks like Sport mode is the way to go.
I have notice that in the RTH function the drone does a lot of thinking before making
moves to RTH and landing Uses up even more power. In Sport mode you just turn around and
blast home.

John MacAulay · Sep 2, 2018

Interesting. I have been making some 2km flights recently with my P3S and was thinking about sending Sparky on the same flight. I was concerned about the flight time. Think I'll reconsider.

John MacAulay · Sep 2, 2018

At 2 km, the phantom still had 70% battery. Says a lot for battery size.

Bob Johnston · Sep 2, 2018

Once ac reaches battery level vs distance it will RTH on its own unless the operator intervenes. that rth speed is 22mph. More if flying downwind. If returning against the wind, it may not make it. Sport speed may help, but flying out against the wind and returning on the downwind is a must, especially with distance fights.

Taborda · Sep 6, 2018

Si sin ninguna duda cuando se lo pone en modo sport..el spark desactiva funciones que tienen consumo de baterias? por lo tanto dura un poco mas

Defens · Sep 6, 2018

John MacAulay said:
Interesting. I have been making some 2km flights recently with my P3S and was thinking about sending Sparky on the same flight. I was concerned about the flight time. Think I'll reconsider.

If you use your P3S to maintain line of sight on Sparky, does that count?

mr_ek9 · Sep 6, 2018

RTH mode is the fastest and most efficient way for the spark to come back, it also decent faster then sport mode, in sport mode it only decent 8-9km/h but RTH mode will decent 11km/h. Few days ago I fly my spark straight out from a cliff to the lake with a compact signal booster on my antenna and it broke my distance record!! (previous was 3842m in suburban area) Fully charged battery fly up 100m and straight out until it auto RTH which I starting to get no live view on my phone. It came back and it still have 22% on the battery and I can still hovering around for 2 mins before I landed it.

desert spark · Sep 7, 2018

Wow you have a super Spark!
I've been out about 2 Km across the barren desert
and I was sweating the return a little bit.

zerink · Sep 8, 2018

Bob Johnston said:
Once ac reaches battery level vs distance it will RTH on its own unless the operator intervenes. that rth speed is 22mph. More if flying downwind. If returning against the wind, it may not make it. Sport speed may help, but flying out against the wind and returning on the downwind is a must, especially with distance fights.

That day was windless, but it may be possible that we had a slight wind in altitude. That would explain it.

zerink · Sep 8, 2018

Taborda said:
Si sin ninguna duda cuando se lo pone en modo sport..el spark desactiva funciones que tienen consumo de baterias? por lo tanto dura un poco mas

claro. pero el punto es que me preocupa que no tenga suficiente batería para volver solo

zerink · Sep 8, 2018

Defens said:
If you use your P3S to maintain line of sight on Sparky, does that count?

I dont think so. Rules seems to be more severe here in Quebec

Andre Levite · Sep 8, 2018

notime4fun said:
Isnt sport mode for making it back on low battery kinda like going faster in your car to the gas station when on a low tank?

Absolutely not. Sport Mode is several times faster than standard mode while drawing only fractionally more power from the battery. Much more efficient so longest distance tests use Sport Mode.

You can RTH in the blink of an eye even when critically low battery. If you get in trouble SM is a lifesaver. Give it a try

netfolks2000 · Sep 8, 2018

desert spark said:
Interesting video!
Looks like Sport mode is the way to go.
I have notice that in the RTH function the drone does a lot of thinking before making
moves to RTH and landing Uses up even more power. In Sport mode you just turn around and
blast home.

If I fly back manually I also start a decent if I was very high so when I'm home it doesn't take so long to land. I do take into count any obstacles on the way as I get close.

Andre Levite · Sep 9, 2018

netfolks2000 said:
If I fly back manually I also start a decent if I was very high so when I'm home it doesn't take so long to land. I do take into count any obstacles on the way as I get close.

I completely agree -- descending while returning to home in Sport Mode saves a lot of time and battery.

I generally RTH at 100' so the Spark is low enough to hear on approach. This helps regain visualization before final decent and landing.